


Dead Man's Eyes

by dracusfyre



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Bucky Barnes's Trigger Words, Established Relationship, Hydra (Marvel), I'm on a roller coaster of emotions, M/M, Or Is he?, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-24 15:54:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21980506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dracusfyre/pseuds/dracusfyre
Summary: For the prompt:bucky goes to tony to give him the trigger words, or even implement new ones, so if bucky gets controlled again, tony can take over bucky and get him to stop hurting people.When Bucky gets taken by Hydra, Tony saves him...right?
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Tony Stark
Comments: 59
Kudos: 563





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For [MassiveSpaceWren](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MassiveSpaceWren/pseuds/MassiveSpaceWren/), who generously donated this lovely prompt to a writer with terrible writer's block. :)

“No,” Tony said, shaking his head, hands up and backing away as if he could physically fend off Bucky’s words. The notebook, a dull red with a black star on the cover, sat between them, full of sinister promise. “No, I won’t do it. I can’t-”

“You have to,” Bucky said over him. “There’s no one else.”

Tony crossed his arms over his chest. “Steve,” he tried. “Sam.”

“They wouldn’t,” Bucky said flatly. “You know that.”

Tony glanced away. “Natasha, then.”

“Do you really think she could?” Bucky pressed. “She would certainly die trying.”

“But you think that _I-_ ” Tony bit off what he was going to say, looking away. “But why _me?_ ” His shoulders hunched defensively. “I’m not…I don’t want this.”

“I know.” Bucky softened and reached out, hands cupping the curve of Tony’s shoulders before sliding down to his elbows and pulling him closer. Tony resisted for a moment before relenting, letting Bucky pull him into the circle of his arms as his head fell to Bucky’s shoulder. “Believe me, I know. But you’re the only one I trust to do the right thing. Because you know…” Bucky swallowed with difficulty. His eyes drifted to the notebook and he felt dread coil in his stomach, heavy and cold. “You know what I am capable of if someone doesn’t stop me.” When Tony didn’t answer, Buck pulled back and cupped his hands around Tony’s face, forcing him to look him in the eyes. Bucky's gaze was warm, sincere, and thoroughly terrified. “Please don’t make me live through that again.” Finally Tony jerked his head down, barely a nod, and Bucky closed his eyes with relief.

* * *

“I’m not going to wait for you to make a _plan,_ Rogers,” Tony said loudly, gesturing to the base below them. “They've already had Bucky for three days now, and you know how I feel about people taking what’s mine.”

“You have no idea what we are walking into,” Steve shot back. Natasha had her hands on her hips and was rolling her eyes. “You think I don’t want Bucky back? But that,” he jabbed a finger at the base, “is a _trap_ , and we need to come up with a better plan than walking in through the front door and just taking it in the teeth.”

"That's rich coming from _you_ , Rogers." Tony put his helmet on and was gone, repulsors blazing, before Steve could answer.

Never say that he didn’t know how to take good advice, Tony thought virtuously as he crashed down through the ceiling of the base instead of the front door, landing heavily three floors down. Hydra agents froze for a moment, weapons still trained towards the door of the room, before they spun and started firing. Tony didn’t even bother to raise his gauntlets, letting his suit’s defense take care of them as JARVIS scanned the facility.

“See him anywhere?” Tony asked, eyes scanning over the images JARVIS flashed on the HUD, Hydra agents outlined in red and overlaid against the bunker’s schematics, scattering as word of the attack spread through the building. “The cell blocks are usually in the lowest part of-“ There was a split second of a proximity warning before a weight crashed down on to his shoulders and there was a line of fire and a rush of wet along his collarbone. Tony instinctively curled and activated the repulsors on his boots, throwing the weight off him and lifting into the air.

Bucky rolled and came to his feet, knife still in his hand. His eyes were cold and hard over the black mask, and if Tony hadn’t been in a suit he would have fallen to his knees with dismay. Locking down the red notebook was supposed to have put an end to this. “Bucky,” he tried, lifting his face plate so Bucky could see his eyes, Bucky had always said that his eyes felt like home – “James,” he tried again, dodging the knife that was thrown at his face, “Come on, Barnes, it’s me-”

But it was fruitless, he’d known it would be fruitless; he’d been afraid of this since _They took him alive, Tony, at least he’s alive._ He closed the face plate again when Bucky drew the rifle from his back and shot at the arc reactor, _bang bang bang,_ center chest just like he was trained. Inside his helmet Tony grimaced as he walked into the rain of bullets, hearing the muffled ringing as they hit his helmet, his chest, trying to find another weak spot. The blaze of pain on his shoulder and the steady leak of fluid down Tony’s chest spoke volumes; a few inches to the left and it would have been Tony’s throat.

Another step and Tony had a hand on the rifle. Bucky pivoted and slammed it into Tony’s face with a force that would have killed him without the armor; as it was, it snapped his head back, then Bucky’s heel was in his chest and forcing him few feet backwards. “Dammit, Bucky,” Tony gritted out, twisting to avoid another knife that scraped across his chestplate instead of ending up between his ribs. He grabbed Bucky’s wrist and twisted as he pulled, putting Bucky in an armlock that he’d practiced hundreds of times in the gym. He wrapped the other arm around Bucky’s throat and pulled him backwards to keep him off his feet. “ _Longing_ ,” he said, his speaker right next to Bucky’s ear, and “ _ru_ _sted,_ ” then his suit’s readings went haywire as Bucky’s metal fingers began digging into the metal to pry his arm off. “ _Furnace!”_ he managed as he was forced to let go before Bucky irreparably damaged his gauntlet.

“Tony! What- _Bucky,”_ Steve said with dismay, skidding around the corner and into the room. Bucky’s eyes narrowed and he turned to throw a desk at the door, wedging it into frame to keep anyone else from coming in. Tony took advantage of his distraction to say “ _Daybreak”_ before Bucky turned on him with renewed fury.

“Daybr- Tony, what in the hell are you doing?” Steve ducked behind his shield as shots rang out. Bucky had pulled a .44 Magnum and was emptying the clip at Tony and Steve as he backed away; Tony half-turned to take the rounds in the heavier armor on his shoulders and back as he followed.

“Stay out of it, Rogers!” Tony said grimly. There was an opening of a split second as Bucky tossed the pistol aside and was reaching for another rifle; he blocked one punch, moved with the second one, and then he had Bucky pinned to the wall of the bunker, one hand on his chest and another on the wrist of his metal arm. Bucky’s narrowed, furious, as he clawed at Tony’s suit with his free hand trying to find a weak spot. “ _Seventeen,_ ” Tony said, opening the faceplate on his helmet. “ _Benign. Nine-_ “

A blow to his ribs knocked him off balance, making him lose his grip and stagger sideways. Steve caught his shield and put it back on his vambrace, mouth a thin line above it. “Not like that,” he said, voice low and angry. “ _Never_ like that.”

“Steve-” A kick to the side of Tony’s knee had him crying out in pain, even in the suit, and then a punch to the temple had him seeing stars. Shaking his head, he climbed to his feet and saw Steve driving Bucky backwards, trying to corner him. Steve knew better than to throw his shield at Bucky, but was still caught off guard when Bucky took a blow to the face so that he could get his hands on it, twisting and wrenching it until Steve was forced to let go or dislocate his shoulder.

“Go!” Tony shouted, shoving Steve behind him. “Let me take care of this!” Tony brought an arm up to block Bucky’s swing, wincing as the edge of the shield bit into the armor; that was going to be a hell of a bruise later.

“Tony, no-” 

“Steve! _Stop helping!”_ Tony fired his repulsors at Bucky, forcing him to take cover behind the shield. Tony couldn’t spare a glance backwards, too busy trying to keep Bucky on the defensive, but wasn’t surprised when Steve jumped into the fray with just his fists. “Dammit, Steve!”

“I know what you were doing, Tony,” Steve called back. “I’m not going to let you finish. There’s another way!” Steve got a good hit on Bucky’s chin and another one on his ribs, but thenBucky lashed out with a vicious kick that slammed him into a wall.

“Punching him into submission?” Tony said incredulously. This time when Bucky swung at his head with the shield, Tony caught it and moved with the motion, throwing Bucky over his hip. Bucky twisted like a cat to land on his feet but had to let go of the shield; Tony chucked it over his shoulder towards the exit, hearing it clatter on the floor. “Believe it or not, I know what I’m doing!” But he knew Steve wasn’t going to be talked down, so he muttered “JARVIS, Exit Strategy, target Steve Rogers.” The repulsors from the center of his back detached and flew across the room, and as Bucky picked up a rifle from a dead Hydra agent they carried a cursing and struggling Steve Rogers out of the hole in the ceiling.

“That’s right, this is between me and you,” Tony said as Bucky’s eyes and rifle tracked Steve’s trajectory before they turned to him, eyes narrowed in suspicion over the black mask. He raised his hands and gestured: _come on._

Without hesitating, Bucky emptied the clip at Tony as he advanced; Tony wrenched the rifle from Bucky’s hands, then grunted in pain as a punch to the stomach left him winded. He cursed his own engineering as he elbowed Bucky in the face, sending him back a step. “ _Homeco-_ shit!” He started, then flinched backwards as another blade found its way into the gaps in armor along his side, severing connections and raking his ribs. Red lights flashed on his HUD as he blocked the next stab, the knife scraping along the armor of his vambraces. “ _Homecoming,”_ he said, grabbing Bucky’s wrist and twisting to get him to drop the knife. Which he did, right into his other hand; the thrust of the knife would have slit Tony from belly button to sternum if he hadn’t been wearing armor. It caught on a chink, and he could feel the pressure as Bucky leaned into it, trying to find flesh even as he fought to free his hand from Tony’s grip. “ _One,_ ” Tony said, raising his face mask again so he could look Bucky in the eye. “ _Fr-_ “

Suddenly there was a deep _thump_ that vibrated through Tony’s bones, then a rumble shook the building, making them both stagger. Tony’s mask closed automatically and an alert suddenly flashed up on his HUD. Tony’s eyes widened as he read it. “Steve!” he shouted into the comms. “Find Nat, Bucky was here to keep us busy!”

He didn’t pay attention to Steve’s answer because Bucky had realized what the rumble meant as well. He set his feet into Tony’s chest and pushed, dislocating his thumb in order to free his arm from Tony’s grip. As he turned to run, Tony tucked his shoulder and barreled into him, pinning him against a wall; if Bucky disappeared now Tony might never find him again. Tony bared his face so Bucky could hear his voice and got headbutted for his trouble. Seeing stars and tasting copper, he managed to say “ _Freight car,”_ and felt Bucky jerk and go still. Around them the building shuddered, groaning from the strain as it collapsed; there was a rumbling sound like thunder that was coming closer alarmingly fast. There was no time to see if it worked; he wrapped an arm around Bucky to carry them out through the hole in the ceiling, but they only made it one floor up when an explosion sent them tumbling sideways, forcing Tony to drop Bucky as they rolled. The floor under them tilted as the walls slowly collapsed, falling concrete punching holes in the floor. Tony grabbed for Bucky, curling around him to take the brunt of the impact and trying to control their fall as the building collapsed. They slammed into the ground floor with a bone-jarring thump that stole the air from Tony’s lungs, then something else hit him and everything went black.


	2. Chapter 2

Tony woke to voices and flashing light; with a groan he opened one eye and saw that the light was the movement of a headlamp as someone was crawling through the wreckage towards him. “Bucky?” he said, but his throat was so dry and his voice so weak he could barely hear himself. He coughed and realized that his face plate was gone, ripped off, and the air was thick with dust. 

“Hurry up before they come back with reinforcements,” one of the voices said, and nope, that wasn’t one of the good guys. “This was their last known location.” Tony struggled to move, realizing he was pinned by a huge chunk of concrete, when the sound of a gun being cocked made him freeze. 

He looked up and up, along the cold black barrel of the pistol to the silver hand that held it, up to Bucky’s face, deep in shadow as the pair of headlamps came closer. Water dripped onto Tony’s forehead from the barrel of the pistol as Bucky stood over him, unmoving. “Oh, shit!” One of them blurted, and the lights stopped, highlighting Bucky in their bright white beams before tilting down to Tony, making him squint. “Looks like he got one,” a voice said gleefully, and Tony could hear footsteps crunching on gravel as he came closer and then the beam was shining right in his face as the man squatted next to him. He wanted to turn his face away from the light, his head already aching enough, but refused to look like he was afraid even though his insides felt like ice. “The invincible Iron Man, looking pretty vinced.” The man turned his head to look at Bucky, and Bucky narrowed his eyes and curled his lip at the glare. 

“Well I’ll be damned,” the other voice said. “I didn’t think it would work, but the boss was right. This really will be shooting fish in a barrel, it almost feels unsporting.”

As the light moved off him towards the other Hydra agent, Tony surreptitiously tried to fire up his suit with no success; even though the arc reactor was glowing dimly under a layer of ash and dust, it's connection to the suit must have been damaged. “Bucky?” Tony tried again. “Come on, Bucky, wake up.”

“Aww, look. He’s trying to get his buddy back.” A rough glove patted Tony’s cheek and he jerked his face away. “Not gonna work, we already put his brains in a blender two days ago.” 

“Now what? Are we taking him in?”

One of the agents scoffed. “Not alive. Boss says he’s not interested in playing hide and seek with the Avengers. We expected to get the other guy, but since we got this one,” the agent tapped his boot against Tony's helmet, "we kill him and bring the suit back to the lab. The techs can shuck him like a clam and we'll finally get our hands on an arc reactor."

“So what’s he waiting for?” Bucky hadn’t moved a muscle this whole time, still and silent as a statue, radiating lethal menace. Tony debated his chances to grab the pistol before Bucky fired, but doubted he could beat Bucky’s superhuman reflexes even if he wasn’t weighed down by a dead suit. Tony couldn’t stop trying to see his eyes, to see if Bucky was in there, but they stayed shadowed as the men argued beside them.

“I don’t know. Were his orders to kill or just contain? Apparently the programming makes him very literal. Oh, hold on.” There was the sound of velcro pocket opening, then there was a new bright light in the room. “I gotta film Iron Man getting iced by the Winter Soldier. Alright, _Soldat._ Execute target.”

Tony raised his chin, refusing to look away as Bucky tilted his head consideringly. The moments stretched as they all waited, but Bucky didn’t fire.

“Is there like, a special word we have to use?” One of the agents asked after a moment.

“I don’t know. I'll get the boss on the phone. Maybe it has to be-”

Tony flinched as Bucky pivoted on his heel and fired twice. The lights careened wildly as the bodies jerked and hit the floor, then Bucky was lost in shadow as the headlamps came to a rest pointed at the ceiling.

“Bucky?” Tony tried to sit up as he heard him walk away, but he was still pinned. He pushed at the concrete trying to get it to shift, but the manual servomotors weren’t strong enough; with a groan of effort, he eventually gave up. “Bucky!” He called out. " _James!"_ Bucky didn't respond, but a warning shot kicked up slivers of concrete in Tony’s face, so he took the hint and shut up, listening to the sound of Bucky leaving him behind until it got lost in the steady drip of water and sussuration of settling debris. He lay there for hours, trapped with only dead men for company, before Steve and the others found him.

* * *

"But I can't believe you would actually _do_ it," Steve said, so furious he was pacing. Tony hissed and twitched as the doctor disinfected his cuts, then held still for the shot of anesthetic before the doctor started the stitches along his collarbone. "To betray his trust like that."

"It would have betrayal not to," Tony gritted out. "He asked me to. He made me promise."

"Have you ever tested it before? Did you even know what would happen?"

God, it was killing him to have to sit still for this argument. He kept his eyes on Steve, trying not to look at the curved needle hovering over his skin. "No. It's not something we wanted to do unless there were no other options."

"So you don't even know if it worked." Tony opened his mouth to answer, but Steve just barreled on. "I was trying to find another option, and you-"

"I removed you from the situation, because that's what Bucky asked me to do," Tony said, raising his voice to talk over Steve. "When you are faced with a rabid animal, first you contain it, then you treat it. You don't chase it down trying to give it a shot while its still running around biting people."

"A rabid animal," Steve repeated in disbelief. "I can't believe you."

"Goddammit, it's a metaphor. The point is, Bucky didn't want any more deaths on his conscience. So yeah, I pushed the reset button, I rebooted his operating software, whatever you want to call it. He may not be mi-," Tony swallowed the word _mine,_ letting it join the other rocks in his stomach. "One of us anymore, but at least he's not Hydra's either."

"Are you sure?"

Tony hung his head, because he had no answer to that. He'd been replaying those minutes in the rubble over and over, trying to figure that out. Had he said the right words? Did he do something wrong? Was there something he missed? As the silence stretched, he heard the squeak of Steve's shoes on the tile floor and the sound of the door closing.

* * *

With a groan, Tony leaned back and put his hands over his face, rubbing his eyes tiredly. It had been over a week since Bucky had vanished; a week and they hadn’t heard anything, either from Hydra or anyone. A week and he and Steve still weren’t talking to each other. Guilt was bitter on his tongue, and that made it easy to stay in his lab instead of limping through conversations with the rest of the team. 

“JARVIS, widen the search parameters,” he said with a sigh, hand still over his eyes, so tired his head was aching and his thoughts felt fuzzy. Bucky could be anywhere on the planet by now; going through that much data would drastically slow down their search, but he was determined not to miss anything, not to let another chance slip through his fingers. They thought they'd had a lead in Nicaragua, in Panama, but by the time they got there he was gone again. 

“Tony.” 

Tony jerked in his chair so hard that he fell out, the wheels on it going sideways as it tipped over. He scrambled to his feet and gaped, blinking as if the figure before him was an exhaustion-induced hallucination. He must have staggered, because then Bucky’s hands were on his arms, warm and real.

“Bucky,” Tony said in disbelief. He pressed his hands against Bucky’s chest, then fisted his hands in his shirt in case Bucky had any ideas about leaving again. “Bucky, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. _Christ_ , I thought - I mean, you said, you know, with the words, and then I tried, but-”

“Tony, ssh, no.” Bucky pulled him close and Tony buried his face in Bucky’s neck. “I’m the one who should be sorry. When I woke up in the dark with you, I tried to get you out, but then I heard Hydra going through the wreckage looking for us.” Tony felt Bucky’s lips press against his temple, and he felt his eyes get hot and his throat tight. “I had to lead them away from you, then get them off my trail and...take care of some things,” he said, voice chilly and remote, “before I could come home.” He pulled back and tilted Tony’s chin up to see his face, and what Tony in Bucky's eyes - regret, relief, _love_ \- made his chest ache. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t contact you until I was done.” 

“You...you mean…” Tony blinked for a moment. "It worked?"

"Yeah, it worked." Bucky leaned down to press his lips to Tony's, soft and gentle. "Might have been the words, might have been the head trauma from the fall. Maybe both. Either way, I woke up myself, and I woke up with you by my side, just like we planned." Bucky's mouth drifted to the corner of Tony's eye, then to the bridge of his nose where an almost healed contusion had turned green and yellow. "Are you okay?" 

"Yeah, I just," Tony blew out a breath, trying to keep his voice level. Now that Bucky was home, it was like all of the stress and exhaustion from the last week hit him all at once. "We, uh, should probably tell Steve-"

Bucky must have seen something on his face because he was shaking his head before Tony finished. "I'm taking you to bed first," he said as he scooped Tony up in his arms. "To sleep," he stressed when Tony raised an eyebrow and smirked. Bucky's eyes fell to Tony's mouth before he determinedly dragged them away to look where he was walking. "Sleep _first_ ," he amended. "Everything else can wait until we get out of bed."


	3. Chapter 3

Two days after Bucky’s return, he and Tony had ventured out of the compound for fresh air, taking a walk through the downtown shops of the small town just a few miles from the compound. Bucky had ducked into the secondhand bookstore slash coffee shop for a moment while Tony held their place at an outdoor table when Natasha sat down across from him. 

“Hey,” Tony blinked. “Fancy meeting you here.”

“Small town,” she said with a quirk of her mouth. “How’s it going?”

“Good,” Tony said honestly. “Things with Steve are, you know,” he held out a hand and gestured _so-so._ “But other than that…” His eyes traveled inside the glass window of the bookstore to where Bucky was browsing the new arrivals section. “I mean, Bucky’s back. What else needs to be said?”

“And everything is going well with him?”

“Yeah, of course.” Tony raised an eyebrow. “Why wouldn’t it?”

“He went through a lot in the past two weeks, I’m just making sure he seems okay to you.”

Tony stared at her for a moment, eyes narrowed, then laced his fingers together and rested them on the cheap wrought iron table. “Cut the shit, Natasha.”

“Fine.” She leaned forward and rested her elbows on the table as well. “Are you sure that the Bucky that came back is the same Bucky that left?”

Tony’s jaw dropped, stunned. That was not what he was expecting. “How - how can you even ask that?” He said finally. “You’ve seen him, you’ve talked to him. What are you trying to say?”

“The Winter Soldier wasn’t always a sniper, Tony. He was trained, just like I was, to put on a persona to get close to our target, to gain their trust. If he was ordered to _act_ like Bucky Barnes to get close to you, no one would know how to do it better.”

“That is _ridiculous,_ ” Tony spat. “I would know if he was - was faking _._ Besides if he was-was still...” Tony gestured expressively rather than say the words _the Winter Soldier._ "Then why didn't he kill me when he had the chance?"

"If he wasn't, why didn't he save you when he had the chance?" Natasha countered. "Why did he walk away, and not come back for another _week?"_

Tony actually had an answer to that. "He left to protect me, and he was gone for so long because he was destroying all the facilities where they'd held him during those three days, especially the one with the chair," Tony said. "Come on, Natasha, it's not like I didn't _ask._ "

"Do you have proof?"

"I don't need proof!"

Natasha stood and put her hands in the pockets of her jacket. Her eyes flickered to where Bucky was still inside buying coffee. "Believe me, I hope for all of our sakes that you are right."

“Then why would you even say anything?”

“Because we’ve both been burned before for trusting the wrong people,” she said. “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice…” She shrugged and looked away for a moment. “Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything. But if I don’t warn you, and the worst happens, then that’s on me, right? And I don’t think I could live with that.” Then she walked away, leaving Tony staring at her back in disbelief.

“You would not _believe_ what Natasha said to me today,” Tony said, throwing his clothes with unnecessary force into the hamper as he undressed, still angry hours later.

“What?” Bucky set his new book down on his chest and sat up straighter in bed, punching the pillows in place to support his back. “More stuff about Steve?”

That reminder made him even madder. “I don’t even want to talk about it,” Tony scowled. He fell face first into bed, trying to shed his bad mood. He felt Bucky stroke a hand down his back, which made him realize how gross and sweaty he still was. “I’m going to take a shower, hopefully that will help.” He levered himself back off the bed, and saw Bucky watching him.

“Shall I join you?” Bucky said, waggling his eyebrows and smiling.

Tony leaned over and gave him a kiss. “Nah, I’ll be quick.” He had hoped that the shower would help him relax, but instead Natasha’s words just played on repeat, like a song he couldn’t get out of his head. _Same Bucky that left. Both been burned before._ “I would know,” he muttered to himself, sticking his face under the spray like it could physically wash away his thoughts. 

_Like you knew with Stane?_

Tony’s hands stilled at the thought. “It’s not the same,” he argued with himself. “I see Bucky every day. No one could fake it for that long.” _Natasha did,_ his traitorous brain pointed out. _All day, for weeks._ “But I wasn’t sleeping with her!”

“Tony, are you talking to me?” Bucky called out through the door.

“No,” Tony called back. He banged his head against the tile of the shower, trying to knock some sense into his brain. “Sorry, just talking to myself.” 

“Alright.”

As Bucky moved away from the door, Tony said, “JARVIS, gimme some music,” and turned up the volume loud enough to drown out his thoughts. When he came out of the shower, towelling his hair dry, he saw Bucky reading one of his science fiction novels with the garish cover, the light from the bedside lamp warm and inviting, and the scene looked so normal that Tony immediately felt like an idiot for his paranoia. When he climbed into bed he lay diagonally so he could put his head in Bucky’s lap. Bucky’s had immediately began carding through his wet hair, like it always did, and Tony smiled. “How are you feeling?” He asked after a few minutes, twisting so he could see Bucky’s face. 

“About as well as you would expect,” Bucky said with a humorless quirk of his mouth, meeting Tony’s eyes over the top of his book. “Being back with you is the only thing keeping me sane, but sometimes...well, you know.”

“Yeah,” Tony said with a silent exhale, turning his head again so Bucky could keep stroke his head. Memories of being trapped in the dark with the dead Hydra agents, wondering if there were others, if the words had worked, if he was going to ever see Bucky again or if he was going to die there in his suit buried in the rubble of a Hydra base, rose unbidden in his thoughts. “I know.” He reached up and squeezed Bucky's hand for a moment, then grabbed his tablet to do some work before bed.

That night, Tony woke up in a sweat from a dream that dissipated upon waking, leaving behind just a vague feeling of disquiet. He rolled over and realized Bucky’s side of the bed was cold. “Bucky?” He called out softly, climbing out of bed and going to the bathroom before searching their suite. He expected to find him in the living room watching TV or reading his book, like he usually did when he couldn’t sleep. Instead, the rooms were dark and empty. “JARVIS, where’s Bucky?”

“He is currently in the garage, sir. He appears to be double-checking the security,” JARVIS said. “I assured him that the building was secure, but he said he needed to check for his peace of mind.”

“Oh.” Bucky hadn’t done that in years. “Thanks, J.” Tony hesitated in the living room for a moment before returning to bed. But of course, now he couldn’t sleep. _We will finally get our hands on an arc reactor,_ one of the Hydra agents had said. “JARVIS, did Bucky -" He started, then shook his nead. "Never mind.” If Bucky was Hydra and was here for Tony’s tech, he could have just killed Tony there in the rubble and taken it, no need for all of this espionage. He also had free access to Tony’s lab, so he could just steal it. Fuck Natasha for putting these thoughts in his head, anyway.

With a sigh, he gave up on sleep for the night and reached for his tablet; might as well get some work done if he wasn’t sleeping anyway. But his tablet wasn’t on his nightstand, in the drawer, or next to the bed. Which was weird, because he was sure had been working on it before he fell asleep. “JARVIS, where’s my tablet?”

“Next to the couch, sir.”

As Tony climbed out of bed to get it, he told himself that Bucky had set it there without thinking as he got ready to go to sleep. It’s not like Bucky could access the tablet anyway, he reminded himself. It was secured with a retina lock that Tony had designed. As he picked the tablet up, he tapped it against one palm thoughtfully. Unless...unless he had fallen asleep with it unlocked. After all, the arc reactor was small potatoes compared to what he works on for the Avengers and SHIELD, all of which were on JARVIS’s servers. “Stop it, Tony,” he said into the dark room. “You’re losing your goddamn mind.”

“Join the club,” Bucky’s voice said from the darkness, making Tony jump. He came up behind Tony, wrapping his arms around him and pressing his chest into Tony’s back. Tony exhaled and relaxed against his warmth. “Bad dream? Is that what’s making you lose your mind?”

“Pretty much,” Tony said honestly. He turned in Bucky’s arms so he could loop them around Bucky’s neck; in the dark, the arc reactor’s light cast Bucky’s eyes into deep shadow, giving Tony a chill. He pushed the feeling away and buried his fingers in the air at the nape of Bucky's neck. “You?”

“Yeah. C’mon, let’s go back to bed.” Bucky slid his hands down Tony’s back and squeezed his ass, then lifted him up and wrapped Tony’s legs around his waist like he was light as a feather. "I'm sure we can figure out something to distract us."

The next morning, Tony was frowning in concentration at the exploded diagram of a next generation propulsion system out of Wakanda when a cup of coffee, still steaming, appeared in his field of view. “Oh, thanks.” Tony sat up straight and took it, wrapping his hands around it gratefully. 

“Whatcha working on?” Bucky asked as he came around the work table, eyeing the bright blue hologram with interest.

“Propulsion system,” Tony said dismissively, ignoring the unfair impulse to close down the plans as Bucky studied them. “What are you up to?” He asked as he took a sip of coffee, then paused, making a funny face before he swallowed.

“I’m heading to the range with Clint later. What’s wrong?” 

Tony was staring down into his coffee, eyes narrowed. “Did you put soy milk in here?”

“Maybe?” Bucky frowned. “I guess I wasn’t paying attention. You like, uh-”

“Almond milk,” Tony supplied, when Bucky hesitated. "I hate soy milk."

“Right,” Bucky said. “I’ll go make you a fresh cup.” He reached for the mug but Tony waved him away and set the cup to the side.

“It’s fine,” Tony said with a smile. “I’ll just make another pot down here so I don’t have to go up to the kitchen for refills.”

“Are you sure?” When Tony nodded, Bucky leaned in for a kiss and stroked his jaw as he pulled away. “I’m sorry, I’ll remember next time.”

Tony held his smile until the lab door closed behind Bucky. He let out a breath and raked his fingers through his hair before covering his mouth with one hand, staring sightlessly at the propulsion plans. “It’s just fucking coffee,” he said out loud. 

* * *

He held out for four days before he broke. Nervously wiping his palms on his pants, Tony stared at the safe built into the concrete wall of his lab, pulse pounding. He couldn’t believe he was doing this; usually the thought of reading the red book make him feel like he needed a shower, but he had to _know._ If there was any information about what Bucky could and couldn’t remember from one mission to another, even between mind wipes, or what, _exactly,_ the trigger words did, Tony had to know. Natasha’s words were a parasite invading his thoughts, destroying his focus and poisoning his time with Bucky. Last time, he had only read the parts he’d had to in order to do what Bucky asked, but this time he was going to read the whole damn thing cover to cover even though he would hate himself the whole time. He would find out that Bucky was fine, _everything_ was fine, and all this shit Tony kept noticing - inconsistencies, forgetfulness, the minute hesitations - was just the product of a paranoid mind and not signs of someone pretending to be something he's not.

Two and a half hours later, he closed the red book and rested his head in his hands. He'd found none of the answers he'd wanted, only more questions. “JARVIS, open a surveillance file,” Tony said eventually, the words bitter as bile on his tongue. “Target, James Buchanan Barnes.” 


	4. Chapter 4

“Sir, Mr. Barnes is at the door.”

Tony’s fingers tightened on his soldering gun before he forced himself to relax. “Let him in,” he said, trying to remain focused on the circuit board he’d been repairing.

“Hey, what’s with the new security?” Bucky asked as he came in with a sandwich in each hand and a bag of potato chips under his arm. “It’s been extra tight around the lab for over a week now. New project for SHIELD?”

“Maybe I’m working on something for you,” Tony lied with a smile as he set the soldering iron aside and took one of the sandwiches. 

But when Bucky sat down with the other sandwich, he wasn’t smiling. “Are you?”

Tony held his smile with difficulty. “I can’t tell you, it’s a surprise.”

“I don’t believe you,” Bucky said bluntly. “When you are working on something for one of us, you can’t wait to talk about it, if not with me then with someone else. But lately you’ve been closed off and quiet. _Too_ quiet. So what’s really going on?”

“Nothing,” Tony insisted, taking a bite of the BLT. 

Bucky took a deep breath and then exhaled slowly, visibly trying not to lose his temper. “Ok, well then could you take some time from “nothing” for us to have dinner or something? I feel like I’ve barely seen you lately.” 

Tony looked down at his sandwich, scared of what Bucky would see in his eyes. It had grown so hard to be with Bucky and not analyze everything he was saying and everything he wasn’t, to keep his questions behind his teeth. If it really was Bucky, he could lose Bucky’s trust forever; if it wasn’t, revealing his suspicions would prevent him from ever learning what Hydra was after. Easier to pretend to be busy, even if it made him miss Bucky terribly. “Sure, he said, he said after a pause that was probably a few seconds too long. “Tomorrow night?”

When there was no answer, he glanced up to see Bucky looking at him. Bucky put the sandwich down and put his hands in his lap, like he was bracing himself. “Is it me? Something I did?” When Tony just stared, speechless, Bucky continued, the words spilling from him in a rush, “Look, I know I’ve been...I don’t know, I’ve been feeling really forgetful lately, and sometimes it feels like - like I’m missing something, like there’s a blank spot where a memory should be. Things are coming back faster than they did, you know, last time, so I didn’t want to say anything, I just wanted to pretend that everything was okay but if I’ve fucked up somehow- like a- a birthday or an anniversary or something - please, just tell me, so I can fix it.” This time, when Bucky met his eyes he looked so lost that Tony couldn’t stand it. 

“It’s not you, it’s me, Bucky, I swear,” he said. He came around his work station and sat on Bucky’s lap, cupping his face in his hands. “I’ve been trying to work through some shit and - and it’s spilling, spilling out on you and I’m sorry. Please, just give me more time, okay?” He kissed Bucky’s temple, then his cheekbone, and when Bucky tilted his head up, let himself be dragged into a long, drugging kiss that started making him very aware that he was, in fact, sitting on Bucky’s lap, especially when Bucky’s hand slid up the back of his shirt, hands warm and rough as they stroked his back. He forced himself to gentle the kiss and pulled back to rest his forehead on Bucky’s. Doing anything else would have been the worst sort of lie. 

“Okay,” Bucky said after a moment. “If you need some time, I’ll wait.” He kissed Tony one more time before setting him on his feet. As he grabbed his sandwich and left, Tony stared at the scarred wood of his work station, trying to swallow back the hot press of tears; Bucky was being sweet and understanding and patient, but all Tony could think was, _of course he would be-if he got mad and picked a fight, he wouldn’t have access to me or the lab anymore._

“Sir, you asked me to notify you if there was an unusual change in James Barnes’ pattern of behavior,” JARVIS said one morning as Tony was savoring his first cup of coffee and reviewing his emails. Tony felt his heart skip a beat then start racing as dread curdled in his stomach. He put his coffee mug down when he realized that his hands were shaking. 

“Go on,” he said, clearing his throat.

A graph of Bucky's cell phone activity flashed onto Tony’s computer screen. A few days ago, it's activity had declined noticeably; it was still being used, but not nearly as much as it had been before. Tony chewed on his thumb, trying to think about what had happened over the past few days, but the only thing he could think was that Bucky had just realized his phone was being monitored. “JARVIS, do a sweep; are there any unknown cell phone signals active on the compound?” If he wasn't using this phone, he was probably using a different one. Though the Avengers had distanced themselves from SHIELD's intelligence collection activities, between Natasha, Clint, and a couple of others, there were a handful of burner phones on the premises at any given time. JARVIS regularly logged them into its system as it periodically swept the compound for unauthorized video or listening devices and would know if a new one had appeared.

“No, sir,” JARVIS after a moment. Tony sighed and sat back in his chair. It was a long shot anyway; JARVIS wouldn’t pick it up if the battery and sim card had been removed, which was Spycraft 101 according to Natasha. Tony scrubbed his face with his hands and closed out of the screen; he would search their rooms later for a burner phone, though he doubted he would be able to find something that Bucky wanted to remain hidden. 

“Tony, we need to talk.”

Tony’s insides turned to ice as Bucky sat down on the coffee table in front of him. Tony sat up slowly and set his tablet aside as he stalled for time. “About what?” he said, proud of how level his voice was. He tried to meet Bucky’s eyes but they kept sliding away to look at a spot over his shoulder.

“About why you are spying on me.” Tony tried to think of something to say but he couldn’t force out a denial; he knew he wouldn’t be able to sell it, not when Bucky was watching him so closely. Bucky raised his eyebrows as the silence stretched. “Right. Okay then.” He hung his head for a moment, then ran a hand through his hair. “I was hoping you would deny it and say that I was imagining things, but you can’t, can you? What is it, Tony? What have I done to make me think you can’t trust me?” Tony wanted to say something but he stayed mute, miserable and scared and guilty and defensive; if he opened his mouth he wasn’t sure what would come out. “Do - do you think I’ve cheated on you? Is that it? Because I swear, that week I was gone I never-”

Tony jerked his head to the side, an instinctive motion of denial that he couldn’t stop in time. Infidelity would be a good cover, but it was too late; Bucky’s searching eyes had seen the motion and knew it for what it was. 

“Then…” Bucky glanced away and in that moment he looked as scared as Tony felt. “If you’re not worried about me personally then it must be professionally. Which means - it means…” Bucky let out an explosive breath and stood, pacing away, apparently unable to put into words. He got to the far wall of the living room and turned on his heel, giving Tony a narrow-eyed look. “Wait, is this - is this what Natasha said to you a few weeks ago?” he said, jabbing his finger at Tony. “That made you so angry?” Tony couldn’t look at him; he wrapped his arms around himself and hunched his shoulders defensively. “I should have known,” Bucky growled, resuming his pacing. “The idea that I am a double agent is something straight out of her post-Cold War, Red Room playbook. When did she say it happened? During that week I was gone? Does she think Hydra got their hands on me and reprogrammed me as a honeypot?”

“Not reprogrammed,” Tony said quietly. “Never deprogrammed. Not since you were first taken.”

“Never-” Bucky stopped pacing in front of Tony, confused. “You mean like, the words didn’t work when you said them?”

“Yes.”

“Why would you think that? I saved your life! Those Hydra agents were going to kill you!”

“You put a gun in my face and then you left me there!” Tony shouted, surprising himself. “You could have said what you were doing! You could have told me _anything_ , but you _left,_ and you were gone for a week and I didn’t know if you were alive or dead!”

Bucky took a step back, stunned. “There was no time,” he said. “I told you that. There were more coming, and I had to lead them away from you.”

“Yeah, that is what you _said_.” Tony didn’t realize how angry he was until he started talking, but now he was shaking with it. “I said the words, but how was I supposed to know that it worked when I woke up and saw you standing over me like that? How can I know now? If Hydra can tell you to _do_ anything, to _be_ anything, how can I trust you?"

Bucky sat down heavily, like his legs couldn’t support him anymore, and curled around himself like he’d been punched in the stomach. “What would it take, then? What would it take to prove that I’m not working for Hydra?”

“I don’t know, _”_ Tony said quietly. “I’ve been trying to figure out something but I’ve got nothing, no answers, no ideas.” They sat in silence for a long time, as Bucky ran through all the scenarios that Tony had been struggling with for weeks. How do you build trust when nothing Bucky said or did could be trusted? When you couldn’t even trust yourself to tell truth from a lie? There was no date on the calendar, no finish line, no way to say "if he hasn't done it by now, he never will"; Stane had hidden his agenda for decades before he showed his true face. 

“We start over,” Bucky said finally. He glanced up and met Tony’s gaze, eyes bleak but jaw firm. “The problem is that you don’t know if the trigger words worked when you said them, so we do it again. Push the reset button, as you like to say.”

Tony’s jaw dropped. “What? No,” he said, shaking his head. “That’s crazy. I mean, everything is crazy, I know. The idea that you are some kind of deep mole for Hydra is…” Tony blew out a breath. “Crazy. Right?”

“Tony, our lives are generally fucking crazy, ok? _I_ know I’m me, but...I’ve shot you, stabbed you, and even when I _was_ me, I had to pretend like I wasn’t. You’ve been betrayed before, so _I get it._ If it was anyone else but me and you, I would be telling you to do whatever it took to keep yourself safe.” He reached out like he was going to touch Tony but he stopped as if unsure his touch would be welcome. “But I think that would mean being separated from you for who knows how long, and I don’t want to lose you. So I’ll do whatever it takes to keep you, okay? I mean, I remembered you once, right? I know I’ll do it again, I could never forget you for long.” 

Tony tried to imagine sitting Bucky down in a chair and saying the words, watching as Bucky disappeared into the Winter Soldier with no way of knowing when he would come back. The image was so repulsive that he thought he was going to throw up, like it was a poison he could eject from his body. “No fucking way.” 

“Then what? I can’t keep living like this, Tony; I want things to be like they were before. I miss you. I miss _us._ ”

The raw ache in Bucky’s voice made Tony’s chest hurt. He studied Bucky's bent head, suddenly feeling calmer. The answer, he realized, is that you have to _decide_ to trust. It was a terrifying leap of faith, knowing that you could be hurt again, but the alternative - losing what he and Bucky had made together, losing Bucky himself - was worse. He took Bucky’s hands, one cold and one warm, and brought them up to his face, kissing the palms and pressing his cheek against them. “I’m done with this insanity. I let it get way out of hand, okay? I’m sorry, I’m so fucking sorry. I should never have let Natasha’s paranoia get to me.” 

“No, Tony, it’s - shhh,” Bucky said helplessly when he felt wetness on his hands. “Come on, stop, if you cry I’m gonna, and I can’t do that cuz I’m a hundred years old and an infamous assassin.” That surprised a wet laugh out of Tony, which made Bucky smile softly. “We’re going to be okay, I promise.” Tony let Bucky pull him in close and he dried his face on Bucky’s shirt, feeling more at peace than he had since this whole mess began. 

* * *

The next day, Tony deleted all the surveillance records and lifted all the security restrictions on Bucky he’d put in place over the last few weeks. Natasha came in while he was cleaning house, looking over his shoulder with interest.

“James Buchanan Barnes: Unrestricted access,” she read from his computer screen. “Interesting choice of security tactics. 'Suspected traitor? Come on in!'” 

“It’s over, Natasha,” Tony said firmly. “I don’t know how I managed to forget this for so long, but I trust Bucky with my life, my tech, everything. I’m done second-guessing him.”

“Oh?” Natasha raised her eyebrows with interest and jumped up to sit on the table, crossing her legs at the ankles and swinging them. “Sounds like something big happened.”

“He offered to let me wipe his brain so that I could trust him again,” Tony said. Christ that was still hard to say. He shook his head to dispel the image. “I still can’t believe I let it get that far that he would offer to do _that_.”

“Unless he was sure you wouldn’t do it.” When Tony looked at her incredulously she said, “You’re a good person, Tony. It’s not that big of a gamble to think that you wouldn’t do something like that.”

Tony stared at her, unblinking, because that thought hadn’t even occurred to him. “Christ. Jesus _fucking_ Christ.” And just like that, the nightmare started over again. Tony leaned against the wall, and when that wasn’t enough, he slid to the floor and buried his face in his hands. “Fuck.” The room was silent for a moment, then he finally said, “I give up. I don't even fucking know anymore. What would _you_ do?”

“Well, the smart play is to detain him and start counter-programming protocols,” Natasha said, coming over to sit next to him. "Or cut him loose, he can't betray you if you've already cut ties." When Tony shot her a Look she held her hands up. _Don’t shoot the messenger._ “But before you do anything, you’re going to have to convince to Steve or you’ll have a war on your hands,” she pointed out. “Have you mentioned any of this to him?”

“Hell no,” Tony said. “We’re still not on good terms after that fight we had before Bucky came back. I can just imagine what he would say to all of this.”

“True. But you need to do something soon, before something happens to make the decision for you.” When Tony exhaled heavily, she leaned against him and rested her head on his shoulder. “We’ll figure this out, Tony. Where’s Bucky now?” 

“In our rooms. Watching TV, I guess.” Tony let his head fall back against the door, eyes red-rimmed. “I just want all of this to be over.”

“I know, Tony.” She put a hand on his bicep and squeezed. “Me too.”

* * *

Later that day, Tony was trying to distract himself by reviewing the blueprints and construction bids on a new Stark Industries facility when JARVIS made a soft alert tone and said, “Sir, there is a visitor at the main entrance.”

“This time of night?” Tony glanced at the clock; it was after 2 am. With a grimace, he realized he’d been working non-stop for almost fourteen hours. It didn’t happen often, but sometimes they got teenagers that would run up to the gates, ring the buzzer, and then run away, as if they could “ding-dong-dash” the Avengers compound without being caught on ten different security cameras. Tony dismissed the blueprints he was working on and rubbed his eyes tiredly. “Pull it up on my screen.” He was still shuffling papers when the image on the screen caught his eye, then he did a double take. “What the fuck?” Tony breathed as he started at his screen. “Zoom in.”

“Hey!” The Natasha on the security cam shouted, waving at the camera with one hand while pressing a bandage against her side with the other. She looked like she’d been dragged through hell backwards, clothes ripped and bloody, lip split and swollen. “I’ve had a hell of a month and I lost my keys, can you let me in?”


	5. Chapter 5

With a controlled voice that gave away none of the pulse-pounding adrenaline that was currently making him vibrate like a live wire, Tony said, “JARVIS, I’m going to need you to lock down whatever room Natasha Romanov is in please, right fucking now.” Then he went to met Natasha at the front gate personally, rather than having JARVIS open the gates.

When he cracked the gate and eyeballed her, she said, “What the fuck, Tony? Why aren’t you letting me in?”

“There’s a lot of “what the fuck” going on right now,” he said warily, looking around to see if anyone else was with her. “Humor me and tell me something only the real Natasha would know, please.”

She narrowed her eyes, patience completely gone. “I know your secret for staying in the suit on long missions, Tony,” she said waspishly. “You tell everyone that waste systems are built into the suit, but it’s just-”

"Okay! Okay, jeez, I get it." Tony winced. “Say it a little louder for the people in New York who didn’t hear you,” he said as he let her in and looped one of her arms around his shoulder so he could help her walk. “First, let’s get you to medical, then I’m going to have to make a lot of apologies, _then_ I’m going to beat the living daylights out of the literally two-faced spy in our midst.” 

Natasha let out a gasping laugh as she limped into the building, leaning heavily against him. “Sounds like we’ve both had an interesting month. Do tell.” 

“They are a group of resourceful, twisted fucks, I’ll give them that,” Tony said, eyeing the captive Hydra agent through the barred window of the containment cell. “Hydra couldn’t have Bucky, so they tried to make sure we couldn’t either.” Without the nanomask disguise, the spy looked nothing like Natasha; the build and the hair was the same, but her face and even the way she carried herself was completely different. Tony and everyone had already apologized profusely to Natasha for not knowing that it wasn’t her, but she had just shrugged philosophically. “It’s what they do,” she’d said with a wry smile. “No shame in getting beaten by the professionals.”

Steve shook his head and sighed. “You were out there on the run from Hydra ever since we were at that base, and we never even noticed. We should have been looking for you.”

“Oh, you noticed,” Natasha said. She moved stiffly towards the small couch down the hall from the cell, ready to sit down and rest her injury before she interrogated her erstwhile doppelganger. “I got your attention in Nicaragua and Panama, but every time you noticed, Hydra also noticed. They caught up to me a couple of times.” She pointed to some healing road rash on her back and said, “Guatemala,” then to the wound in her side and said, “Brazil, fell through the roof of a favela trying to escape,” then to her cut lip: “Trying to get back into the US. Must have been pretty desperate to keep me off the radar until their little plan came to fruition.” 

“I can’t believe I was so stupid,” Tony said. “She said ‘are you sure you can trust him,’ and just like that, I was seeing Hydra everywhere except right beside me.”

Steve protested and Natasha shook her head. “Tony, you knew in your heart it wasn’t true,” she said. “That’s why it’s been killing you inside, because your heart was telling you one thing and your brain something else.” When Tony still looked unconvinced, she gestured for him to come sit next to her. “Look, the only reason why she got to you was because the stakes were so high.” He looked at her skeptically so she elbowed him in the side. “If she had come to you and said she was very sorry, but she had slept with Bucky while he was on the run, would you have believed her?” Tony snorted and Nat smiled. “Exactly. But she knew exactly what buttons to push - only the safety of the Avengers and, I don't know, the free world, could be strong enough to make you doubt yourself and Bucky.” 

“I still feel terrible. I was so horrible to Bucky, how do I make it up to him?”

“If you want to do penance,” Bucky said with a broad grin and a wink as he came around the corner, “I recommend spending a lot of time on your knees.” Steve and Natasha both rolled their eyes as Bucky pulled Tony to his feet and dipped him into a Hollywood kiss. 

“You’re not mad at me?” Tony asked breathlessly when Bucky set him back on his feet.

“Sweetheart, no,” Bucky said, running his thumb over Tony’s bottom lip. “That’s the whole reason why I trusted you with the red book. I knew you would do what was right, what was necessary, no matter how you personally felt about it." He kissed Tony one more time, as if he couldn't stop himself. "Because that's what a hero does." He looked over Tony's shoulder into the holding cell. " _T_ _hat_ bitch, though, I'm going to choke the life out of."


End file.
